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Hey SharePoint, go PSCONFIG Yourself!
I recently was upgrading SharePoint 2010 out of the box, no updates installed to the latest Cumulative Update (February 2013). Service Pack 1 needs to be installed in order to deploy the update, so I...
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Broken Results SP2010, FAST Search
I recently patched SharePoint 2010 to the April 2013 Cumulative Update, MS Office Web Apps to SP1, and FAST Search for SP2010 to the April Cumulative Update. My current SP2010 FAST Search architecture...
View ArticleSearch Service Application Errors on SP 2013
In more locked down environments SP 2013 and SP 2010 have had issues provisioning the search service application when creating the Search Service through the Central Administration website. The Search...
View ArticleSharePoint 2013 Search Topology Script
The SharePoint 2013 Search Topology Script below shares search coponents accross 3 servers. You can modify it to do more or less depending on your farm architecture. Good news, it says SharePoint...
View ArticleSharePoint Solution Deployment Script using PowerShell
I have a need on regular basis to deploy multiple solutions into my SharePoint farm. Well who wants to sit around into the late hours of the night typing commands or editing an older ps1 file to meet...
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Creating a Linked Data Source in SharePoint Designer
Michael had a question regarding Jenny’s Tip about content rollups located here. Iread through Jenny’s post and it was very helpful, but I think there is a different way to do this that I prefer...
View ArticleNetwork security and the government: The top five vulnerabilities
For almost 10 years, I worked to maintain a secure IT environment in the State Department. My work stretched across three consecutive Secretaries of State: Secretaries Albright, Powell, and Rice. Over...
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SOA What? SOA SharePoint 2013
Who isn’t excited about SharePoint 2013? There is a lot of new goodness in SharePoint 2013 and from a strategic standpoint. I see a pattern of its enhanced features that can be utilized by an...
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Creating a Custom SharePoint Calendar Rollup
A few months ago I had a requirement to rollup multiple SharePoint 2010 Calendars into one centralized calendar. I initially thought, “overlays make that a piece of cake!” Little did I know, I was...
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SharePoint 2013 User Profile Services
I was recently importing profiles into SharePoint 2013 using the User Profile Service application inside of SharePoint, and I was not able to import any profiles. Strangest thing is that the...
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Step by Step add Filter to a Custom DVWP in SPD
This is an easy task however, it is not intuitive. Click the Design ribbon option under the “Data View Tools” section. Click this section of the SPD Ribbon Then click the “Sort and...
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4 of My Favorite Things About MetroStar Systems
This upcoming Thanksgiving holiday more so than years past has inspired me to reflect upon the many things I have to be thankful for, one of these being my job. MetroStar Systems has a reputation of...
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SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services, Search and Profile Page Demo
This topic will be separated into 3 posts. It will cover a demo with step by step instructions for SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services, Search and Profile Pages. The second post will go...
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SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services, Search and Profile Page Demo...
Back to Part 1 Create the External Content Type External Content Types are similar to regular content types in that they contain several fields that make up that particular content type. The main...
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SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services, Search and Profile Page Demo...
Back to Part 2 Configure Search Crawl This section is relatively quick. The only caveat is that by default BDC only returns 2000 results. For our example this is fine. But often times you will need...
View ArticleHelpful JavaScript Functions for SharePoint
There is no mistaking it, when it comes to SharePoint 2010 and on, JavaScript plays a huge role. A lot of the JavaScript you generally don’t see however, and if you don’t know where to look, you might...
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Installing Workflow Manager Offline for SharePoint 2013 Workflows new Command...
Installing Workflow Manager Offline for SharePoint 2013 Workflows new Command Line Many times when working on a clients servers they are not allowed outbound access to the internet and the client may...
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SharePoint 2013 Workflow Manager Installation Verification
SharePoint 2013 Workflow Manager Installation Verification If you follow http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj658588(v=office.15).aspx#section6, in the verification section is says “When you...
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SharePoint 2013 Search Results Webpart Timeout
Initial SharePoint Search Results Timeout Problem When working with several million results and extremely complex queries even with a relatively robust farm you may get a “Something Went Wrong” error...
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InfoPath is Dead (Deprecated): What is InfoPath’s Replacement? FoSl?
InfoPath Deprecated Microsoft Announced on Jan 31st via the InfoPath blog officially that InfoPath is deprecated. http://blogs.office.com/2014/01/31/update-on-infopath-and-sharepoint-forms/ FoSl Forms...
View ArticleTaking SPQuery To The Max
Recently I was working on a project which utilizes SharePoint to store backend data for a ticketing system. The layout of the data is a bit relational, much like SQL tables. In fact, some would say...
View ArticleUsing PowerShell to Update a SharePoint Site Group Description
This post is in response to a comment that I received on a previous post. The comment essentially asked how you would go about updating the “About Me” (Description) of a SharePoint Site Group. You...
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SharePoint 2013 Any Color Coded Calendar, Step by Step
Previously MetroStar had a blog on how to create a color coded calendar Out of the box (OOB). This post will cover step by step on how you can leverage just a bit of JS that you can easily copy and...
View ArticleUsing Powershell and the SharePoint 2013 CSOM to Export List Data
One of the all too common tasks that I get in my current position is to export SharePoint list data to a spreadsheet. You might be thinking, why do that when SharePoint provides Export to Excel out of...
View ArticleThe Puzzle Challenge – Part 2
The Puzzle Challenge – Part 2 01000011 01101111 01101110 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101110 00101100...
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The Puzzle Challenge Part 3
The Puzzle Challenge – Part 3 01010011 01110100 01100101 01100111 01100001 01101110 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01110000 01101000 01111001 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110010...
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Through the Eyes of the Intern
Finding the Right Fit As a marketing management student about to enter my senior year at Virginia Tech, getting real-world experience as a marketing intern was a top priority for me this summer. I...
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Where are Your Users Looking?
I Love Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology taught me that even really smart, capable individuals are susceptible to cognitive biases simply because we’re humans and that’s what humans do. A few...
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SharePoint 2013 Business Connectivity Services, Create a Display Template for...
Back to Part 3 Create a new SharePoint Item Display Template In the previous blog post we had created all of our SharePoint BDC connections, content types, search schemas, and crawls. But the display...
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Fix a SharePoint 404 error (Caused by restoring a previous copy of a content...
SharePoint 404 error (After restoring a previous copy of a content database to replace the current one) A 404 error in SharePoint can mean multiple things. In this case it happens because we restored...
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SharePoint 404 error Site Collection Corrupted (error 0×80070003), How to Delete
SharePoint 404 error Site Collection Corrupted (error 0×80070003) How to Delete Previously we took a look at a possible cause of a 404 error in SharePoint after a content database restoration. This...
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The UX Train: Getting Your Clients on Board
You’re on the fast track to building a successful product after having discovered the value of a user-centered approach, but your clients aren’t all on board yet. Project goals, deadlines, and politics...
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Agile Melodies – Part I: Setting the Stage
Let’s start with a couple of scenarios. Imagine that you’re sitting in the front row at the National Symphony. The lead violinist is in the final part of her solo piece of an exquisite concerto. The...
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Agile Melodies – Part II: No, You Can’t Do Whatever You Want
In the first post of this series, we discussed how a “traditional” symphony orchestra fell apart when asked to deviate from the original score, while an “agile” jazz combo followed right along as a...
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What a Silly Cow Can Teach You About Innovation
More Than Just a Buzzword “Innovation” has become the latest buzzword that companies use to entice prospective employees. It insinuates a culture in which employees are empowered to take risks in order...
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Essential Elements of a Successful R&D Program
While the concept of research is as old as science, the pairing of research and development is a relatively new development. The innovations that result in new products and new processes usually have...
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Color Coding a SharePoint 2013 List View the Right Way
In this post, I’ll quickly go over how you can very easily customize an out of the box SharePoint 2013 List View using a lesser-known feature called Client Side Rendering (CSR). CSR basically provides...
View ArticleTop 5 Capabilities of SharePoint
SharePoint has become an essential tool for organizations (like ours) looking to organize, store, and share information from anyplace, anytime. Already, 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies use...
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Hiding SharePoint 2013 Form Fields based on Permissions
In a previous post, I explained how you could use a new feature in SharePoint 2013 called Client Side Rendering (CSR) to color code a list view. Using that same methodology, I’ll be going over how you...
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Angular and SharePoint Integration
Why Use Angular? SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 both ship with an updated REST API that can be used to access and control nearly every aspect of a site collection: Lists, Libraries, Permissions, and...
View ArticleSharePoint Limitations & Solutions [Video]
Though you might be brimming with excitement from our last Metrostar Minute on Top 5 SharePoint Capabilities, we would be lying if we said that there weren’t some limitations to SharePoint. Prior to...
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Creating a Document Rollup Using SharePoint 2013 Search
One of the most powerful (and most overlooked) features in SharePoint 2013 is SharePoint Search. Unfortunately, few people realize just how powerful it can be. I suspect that this is because most...
View ArticleWhy We Choose SharePoint
For nearly a decade, experts in our Collaboration practice have developed SharePoint solutions internally and for our customers. Whether developing a content management system, building intranets, or...
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Top 3 Lessons Shared with GMU’s Class of 2016
If you’re not one of the graduates proudly dawning your robe and enjoying the crowning achievement of your college career, you’re probably sitting in the stands teary-eyed and cheering your friends and...
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A Look at Microsoft’s SharePoint Mobile App
When will the mobile app be released? For companies that heavily utilize Microsoft SharePoint, a mobile solution is on its way. The official SharePoint mobile apps will be released later this month for...
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Knowledge Base Dashboard with SharePoint Content Query and Search
Initial Setup for a Knowledge Base 1. We start with a set of documents for our Knowledge Base. They are in a new Content Type and we have added in some fields to make it easier to organize and search....
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Dynamic SharePoint List Dashboard using Excel Viewer
Dynamic SharePoint List View Dashboard with Excel Viewer This post will cover how to create an Excel Dashboard inside of a SharePoint list or library view, using the Excel Viewer web part and an Excel...
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Dynamic SharePoint Graphical Inventory using Visio Viewer
Dynamic SharePoint Graphical Inventory using Visio Viewer In this post we will create a Visio diagram with data shapes linked to multiple SharePoint lists. We will then display the Visio floorplan...
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SharePoint Tutorial: Creating a button in SharePoint 2013 or 2016
An Updated Tutorial MetroStar previously published a tutorial detailing how to create a button to add items or documents to a list in SharePoint 2007. Since this was, and still is a popular post, in...
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Get the Total for Calculated Columns in SharePoint
Creating a Calculated Column MetroStar previously published a blog on using the DataView Web Part and SharePoint Designer to get the total on a Calculated Column. This is because SharePoint does not do...
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